Exemplarist Moral Theory
In
this book Linda Zagzebski presents an original moral theory based on
direct reference to exemplars of goodness, modeled on the Putnam-Kripke
theory which revolutionized semantics in the seventies. In Exemplarist
Moral Theory, exemplars are identified through the emotion of
admiration, which Zagzebski argues is both a motivating emotion and an
emotion whose cognitive content permits the mapping of the moral domain
around the features of exemplars. Using examples of heroes, saints, and
sages, Zagzebski shows how narratives of exemplars and empirical work on
the most admirable persons can be incorporated into the theory for both
the theoretical purpose of generating a comprehensive theory, and the
practical purpose of moral education and self-improvement. All basic
moral terms, including "good person," "virtue," "good life," "right
act," and "wrong act" are defined by the motives, ends, acts, or
judgments of exemplars, or persons like that. The theory also generates
an account of moral learning through emulation of exemplars, and
Zagzebski defends a principle of the division of moral linguistic labor,
which gives certain groups of people in a linguistic community special
functions in identifying the extension or moral terms, spreading the
stereotype associated with the term through the community, or providing
the reasoning supporting judgments using those terms. The theory is
therefore semantically externalist in that the meaning of moral terms is
determined by features of the world outside the mind of the user,
including features of exemplars and features of the social linguistic
network linking users of the terms to exemplars. The book ends with
suggestions about versions of the theory that are forms of moral
realism, including a version that supports the existence of necessary a
posteriori truths in ethics.
